Want to stop mass shootings? Arm more people with firearms.

Let’s say you live in a totalitarian state that has banned firearms from citizen use, such as England, and terrorists show up and start murdering people. What do you do? Run, hide, and then call the cops. Why? Because the cops have guns, and the only way to stop a bad guy on a murdering rampage is to shoot him dead. Sure, there are other weapons, but shooting them is usually the most effective solution.

Therefore, the principle that even leftists believe is that if a madman is on the loose, you need to call the guys with guns (the cops) to stop them.

In a busy city, it takes cops minutes to respond when seconds matter. In the attack I linked to above, it took armed police 8 minutes to show up. By that point, 8 people were dead and 48 were injured. And the terrorists didn’t even have guns, they just had a van and some knives. 4 unarmed police officers were injured too, unable to effectively stop the attack, so it’s pretty clear that being an unarmed cop in this kind of situation is pretty much pointless.

How many lives could have been saved if somehow the cops could have been there within 30 seconds? Is that possible? For the cops, no, unless by some coincidence they were already happened there. But you know who else was in the area? The victims being murdered. And if those victims were trained and had firearms, guess what? They could have stopped the terrorists, and maybe lived out the rest of their lives in peace.

Firearms are great equalizers. You don’t need to be a trained martial artist with 20 years of experience to effectively wield a pistol. You don’t need to be young, or in great shape. You can be a 50 year old lady who never exercises, and if you’ve had a few days of decent training, you can effectively deploy a pistol to protect yourself and those around you.

The bottom line is this: The only effective way of stopping a bad guy is a good guy with a gun. Everybody believes this. Regardless of your politics, left or right wing, authoritarian or anarchist, when a bad guy is trying to kill you and you’re unarmed, you’re going to call the cops for help, because the cops are the proverbial “good” guys with guns. So why not arm more people and have good guys with guns on every street corner, in every restaurant, in every church and mall?

Every time a mass shooting happens, the left calls for more gun control. Sometimes, even the right calls for more gun control. The government always seeks for a way to gain power, and disarming people is the surest way, because an unarmed person cannot protect their rights. The media is largely a corrupt spokesperson for the government, so they’ll happily play along, especially since they get more clicks and ad revenue from sensationalizing tragedy.

But what about you? Don’t you want to live? Don’t you want to protect yourself, and your family? Maybe even your neighbors? Where’s your sense of responsibility?

Not really. When someone posts something truly ignorant like, “Let’s say you live in a totalitarian state that has banned firearms from citizen use, such as England”, the game’s up anyway. The country is called Britain, not England, and I live there. People of good character can get guns, including handguns and AR-15s. Britain is a democracy, and is not a totalitarian state – how ignorant does someone have to be to believe it is a totalitarian state?

” I wonder how gun-control advocates would respond to this sound logic 🙂”

There’s also precious little logic. The commentary links to the attack on London Bridge. Part of the attack was the use of a van, which could have been defeated entirely by the use of bollards – which were installed after the attack, when they should have been installed much earlier. I guess that the mayor forgot to ask for a security briefing. There’s no requirement for everyone to be armed, in the style of John Wayne. Rather, the requirement is to analyse areas of high pedestrian flow and put in bollards.

As for the knives, that was a question of solidarity – or lack thereof. There were only a few attackers, armed only with knives, but each person running away saw themselves as personally outnumbered. Curiously, every bar and restaurant in the area is full of knives (think about it), so there were plenty of weapons to go around. One man was running away with a pint glass in his hand, which he could have smashed against a hard surface and put an edge on it.

One police officer was stabbed while confronting the three terrorists. He tried using a baton, even though he was equipped with a pepper spray. He admitted afterwards that he forgot to use it.

The Second Amendment, as originally written by James Madison in 1791, speaks of a ‘well-regulated’ militia. The inhabitants of that area could have formed a militia with the weapons that come to hand. Sadly, nobody seems to have thought of it at the time. Individuality, not solidarity, all the way.

Major room for improvement, then, but still no requirement for everyone to be armed, in the style of John Wayne.

“Of the 8 killed, 4 were unarmed police officers, so it’s pretty clear that being an unarmed cop in this kind of situation is pretty much pointless.”

And it says that in what part of the linked document? Here’s what the linked document actually says:

“Four police officers were among those injured in the attack. A British Transport Police officer was stabbed and suffered serious injuries to his head, face and neck.[57] An off-duty Metropolitan Police officer was seriously injured when he was stabbed.[58] Two other Metropolitan Police officers received head and arm injuries.[59]”

I specifically used “England” rather than “Britain” because the laws on firearms are not identical across England and Scotland. Your attempt to dismiss the logic I used based on pedantry is disingenuous.

More important though is your highly deceptive comment on weapon possession. “People of good character can get guns, including handguns and AR-15s.” No they can’t. In 1997 the British government finally clamped down on handguns. You can still buy some antiques and collectables. Regardless, the more relevant point is that my article talks of self-defense, and self-defense with a firearm in Britain is ILLEGAL.

I don’t know and cannot be bothered researching British law on AR-15s because I know that regardless of whether it’s possible to possess them or not, it would be illegal to use them in self-defense, and it’s unreasonable to expect people to EDC AR-15s, and it’s carrying on your person (easily achieved with a handgun) that I advocate.

In Britain, you have to prove to a court that someone has made credible threats against you beforehand and then, maybe you can get license. It’s entirely up to their discretion. Meaning the average person CANNOT obtain a modern firearm, and certainly cannot use one in self-defense. There are plenty of cases of farmers shooting intruders and going to jail for it.

In Britain, it is illegal to possess any weapon with the intent to defend yourself. British law treats any weapon carried with intent to defend yourself as an offensive weapon. So if you carry a small folding knife for defense, and you’re searched, you’re going to get it confiscated and risk going to jail. Even pepper spray is a banned article. I lived there for over 5 years and during that time researched pretty exhaustively what my options for self-defense were, and basically you can use your hands, or an object you happen to find nearby, but not carried on your person.

You are however correct that 4 police officers did not die in the attack, I misread the wikipedia article and will update my post.

“The Second Amendment, as originally written by James Madison in 1791, speaks of a ‘well-regulated’ militia. The inhabitants of that area could have formed a militia with the weapons that come to hand. Sadly, nobody seems to have thought of it at the time. Individuality, not solidarity, all the way.”

The second amendment does not apply to Britain, so no, forming an armed militia for community defense is highly illegal there. I’m not entirely sure what your argument is – that the disarmed people of Britain, who cannot even carry pepper spray, are supposed to run to the local restaurants and bars, go to the kitchen, grab some kitchen knives, and then proceed to enter into a knife fight with the terrorists, which by all appearances had explosive vests (which turned out to be decoys) and therefore should not be engaged at close range? Are you kidding me? Did you actually think this through before you posted it? What’s the difference between civilians running off to arm themselves with inferior weapons and then running back, and just waiting for armed police to come?

My article was about reducing the amount of time it takes to stop these deadly threats, as every minute lost incurs a high cost in lives. To that end, I advocated having effective, terrorist-stopping weapons on your person (i.e. handguns), and that is highly illegal in Britain.

The laws on guns in Britain vary a little from place to place. Scotland has brought in a much-needed set of regulations on air rifles, once people got fed up with thugs shooting their cats. Northern Ireland has semi-automatic handguns as Section 1 handguns, since under the Good Friday agreement they can write their own laws in certain key areas. Areas directly governed by the queen have their own parliaments, and their own laws. However, the laws laid down by the London parliament run equally across the majority of the UK.

Pedantry is not at issue here. If I suggested that you lived in The United States of Oklahoma, would a correction be pedantry?

Handguns remain Section 1 firearms. Indeed, being able to safely fire handguns is a requirement of a Section 1 FAC license.

Handguns come in two kinds (three if you include Northern Ireland). Black powder handguns are available, and are used at pistol ranges. For three-gun events, a ‘carbine’ is used, with a 12″ barrel, and a welded under-arm stock to take the minimum overall length to 24″.

AR-15s are also Section 1 firearms. You can get two kinds. Semi-automatic in 22lr, and 223 (or any other centre-fire calibre) as straight pull.

I have in the past given URLs for Youtube videos about British gun laws. But I’m sure you can find the videos just as easily.

In Britain it is lawful to own and carry things (baseball bats, knives, guns) for a lawful purpose. It is also lawful to use these things for self-defence. It is unlawful to own or carry something for the purpose of hurting someone.

Gun licenses are issued to people who are of good character and who can shoot guns safely. There are about 2 million guns in the UK held on about 1 million licenses. The whole thing is done according to due process, and the wise applicant joins the BASC first (sort of analogous to your NRA – our NRA does something different to the BASC).

We have a state militia called The Territorial Army. They are equipped with assault rifles, and are well-regulated since they are governed by military law, and directed by officers.

At a more general level, a militia is any group which comes together for mutual defence. Well-regulated in this context means directed by the police. The militia can be formed ad-hoc from people in the area at the time. As I pointed out earlier, in the events mentioned in your blog, there were plenty of improvised weapons available. Indeed, the police did engage the terrorist at close range, and one forgot to use their pepper spray with which they were issued.

My country is basically safe. It is a point at question whether the wide issue of guns would have made that event, or life in general, more or less blood-soaked. You may care to contrast our (somewhat imperfect) system of gun regulation with that of other countries, and ask if the British system really is so bad.